


That Foreign Feeling

by A_Brat_Without_Talent



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dad Sazed, Fuck Sazed (The Adventure Zone), Gen, Hodgepodge is a carnival toy, I has write Sazed nice for the purpose of my story and now I want to go eat bleahc, I’ll change the warning when something happens., Kid!Taako, Kinda, Loneliness, Lucretia has a god complex, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Panic Attacks, Sizzle it up!With Taako, actully, child Taako, eventually, ill add more tags as the story goes on, im so proud that’s an actual tag, lol, oh yeah, ‘Cause I fuckin’ can
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:58:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Brat_Without_Talent/pseuds/A_Brat_Without_Talent
Summary: Fate decided to give the Taako Twins their other half. They were never meant to be alone. With Lup gone, Lucretia had no choice but to set Taako up with company. Someone to keep him from loneliness. A person to keep him company in the dead of night.Unfortunately, Lucretia’s actions left Taako in the darkest night he will ever experience.





	1. Golden Hour.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning you now, I’ve got dark plans for this story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia’s judge of character is a little screwed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia is not in the best state of mind.

It was so beautifully ironic that fate decided to give two people, destined to be cast out, a lifelong companion who would never leave. Ironic that those who seems so prone to bereavement would never be alone. Two people, joined at the hip, always had each other even when the world shut them out and turned them away. 

They were phenomenally stupid. When one had the option for a better future, they both refused. The ironic twins were a package deal. Both or None. Just as fate intended. No future is worth losing a lifelong friend. A family you can always count on. A mirror image you always have at your side. 

Beautifully stupid, phenomenally ironic, the Taaco Twins, a package deal of fates best dealt hand. 

To Lucretia, the Taako Twins dripping with the tears luck but drenched in the blood of misfortune. Born together The taaco twins were both lucky and unlucky at the same time. Destined for the streets but always had someone to talk to. A double even if one would never truly fit into her given mold. Magic and Mind make them both a forced to be reckoned with even if they were only children. 

When Lucretia decided to play god, she had such a hard time finding the perfect life for Taako. Fate had decided Taako shouldn’t be alone, so She couldn’t just give the elven child a traveling show and leave. 

Lucretia searched for an adequate companion. She sacrificed her health to give Taako the perfect new life. Unfortunately, no one was worthy; No one was perfect enough. 

She ended up settling for a renowned chef in Neverwinter. Lucretia had no problem tweaking his memories to favor Taako. As far as the chef knew, he had set out to find a new passion after his restaurant burnt down mysteriously. In reality, his restaurant was buried under black glass in town that wouldn’t be remembered. 

With pride at her work, Lucretia led a disoriented Taako to the entrance of his caravan. She moved the citizens around Neverwinter like pawns. Perfectly placed to aid Taako in his meeting with the chef. It had to be authentic. The meeting had to be real, if nothing else. 

She turned to Taako. The child looked up at her quizzically. “Taako.” He didn’t respond. “I’m gonna miss you, but you’ve got the perfect life. I’ve made everything perfect so you. Every nook. Every cranny. I designed for you. I know you won’t remember this conversation but I hope you remember that this world, this life, was sculpted perfect for you and only you.” She paused as Taako slowly sat down on the carpet. 

“Always remember, Somebody loves you.” And then Lucretia left. 

She left the twin with out his other half. She left a child elf by himself. She left him a life molded for him. But most importantly, Lucretia left Taako, naive and childish, with a stranger. 

Taako shook with excitement and anxiety. He peered through the red curtains that covered his window. Outside of the caravan stood forty or fifty people waited. Majority of the crowd were old ladies and single moms, but that didn’t matter. Taako knew he could amaze anyone. 

Taako took a deep breathe and threw open the curtains.  
“Prepare to be amazed!” He shouted with a dazzling smile. “And welcome to the first ever show of Sizzle it up!With Taako” With a cap of his hands, the lights in the room switched into a bold array of colors. 

Fifty turned to sixty. 

“I’m your host Taako and today we’re gonna be making a luxurious, but similar dish that will satisfy picky eaters and ensnared the taste buds of even the harshest cook.” 

After the initial introduction, Taako toned down the atmosphere and cooked slowly to provide his audience enough time to soak up the information. He still managed to captivate the watchers with entertaining comments and glamorous transmutations. 

Taako tore open the oven. “And then, you just place the dish out to cool and you’re done.” He exclaimed as he bent over and pulled out the dish. “In about ten minutes,” Taako glanced at the nearest clock. “I’ll let y’all have a taste of Taako’s signature meals.” 

After scooping himself a plate, Taako weaves through the crowds. It wasn’t hard being small, even for a child. He mingled with adults as if he was one and talked with critics looking for something to chew. Question union Question slammed upon him like waves during a storm. 

“Why does a child own a caravan?” 

“Where are parents?”

“Children as young as you shouldn’t be near an oven or knives. You could get hurt.” 

Taako answered them all with a smile and clever dodges to their curiosity. He chatted with the attendees until the crowds dwindled and stars began to shine. Taako then quietly crept back to his caravan. 

He locked door behind him. Taako kicked off his shoes, he tore off his extravagant robe and pulled on the ratty red robe draped across a chair. Taako pulled his large hat over his eyes and sank to the floor. He dug his toes into the shag carpet and buried his nose in the red robe. 

Taako felt starved, dehydrated. As if he was wandering the desert, chasing after mirages that would forever be ahead of him. His stomach was full and he was not parched but Taako still felt empty. He was filled with a such a terrible foreign feeling that he couldn’t even place its name. 

The robe smelled of cinnamon and campfires. It was such a comforting scent that Taako couldn’t not ponder as a loud knock sounded from outside. Pulling himself from the carpet, the young elf dragged himself to the door. He pushed his hat away from his eyes and tore open his front door. 

A towering young man stood in front of his door. The man had an easy smile about him. His posture told nothing of fowl intent. 

“Hello?” Taako asked warily. He was not about to trust a stranger knocking on his door at the dead of night. “It’s kinda late to be knocking, my dude.” 

The stranger laughed. “Sorry about that, I tried to catch you after the show but you seemed to be busy dealing with mom’s.” That emptiness Taako’s felt began to dissipate. “I’ll cut right to the point. You seem a little too tired for me to drag on this useless bullshit.” That got a giggle from Taako. “I’m a chef, or I was till my restaurant burnt down. Since then I’ve felt so lost. I needed a purpose.” 

Taako raised an eyebrow. “A purpose?” 

The man looked a Taako with an excited smile. “Yes!” He shouted enthusiastically. “A purpose. And I found one. You are my purpose. I want to help you succeed in anyway I can. I want Sizzle it up to thrive. Please let me help. There are many benefits to having me with you.” He rambled on. “I can help with finances, drive the caravan, I’m a chef and most importantly, people will stop asking if you have a parental guardian around. They’ll assume it’s me.” 

Taako thought about it. “Alrighty, I’ll think about it. But keep in mind Taako is alone. You are not and will never be a parental figure for Taako. If I decide to let you onto my show you will be a employee and nothing more. Got it.” The stranger nodded. “Okay, if you can cook me a meal and I enjoy it, I’ll let you into Sizzle it up. What your name, thug?” 

“My name is Sazed.” The man answered. 

“Alright, Sazed. Come by around lunchtime and make me something I won’t forget.” Taako turned back into his caravan and shut the door behind him. 

Stepping back onto that shag carpet and inhaling that campfire cinnamon scent, Taako could now place the empty foreign feeling. 

Loneliness. 

Taako, the unwanted orphan. Taako, deemed forever alone by fate herself. Taako, who had never had a friend of companion. Taako, who was always alone. 

Taako was immigrant to loneliness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fun trip to the carnival ends in blind anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date is a day ahead (July 16th, instead of July 15) cause I’m testing to see if the date is the reason my fic isn’t updated to the top of the page. My apologies.

“Sazed,” Taako whined. “Where are we going?” The young elf was being dragged through busy streets by his helpers hands. The larger mans hands engulfed his own. The warmth radiating off of them felt so recognizable.. How could someone he’d only known for a couple months feel familiar? So little things felt familiar. Everywhere around Taako felt as if someone had shifted it.

The world left Taako feeling the way you feel when the furniture is moved slightly over and no matter how hard you try you keep bumping your hips into tables and stunning your toe on the legs of the chairs. The world was disorienting. As a passerby, nothing seemed off. If Taako focused anywhere else, he would miss it. He would miss how off it felt. He would miss the indent in the carpet from where the couch used to sit. The more he watched the world and learned every detail, more he felt that the world was wrong. What was it missing? 

“Hold your horses, little man. We’re almost there.” Sazed answer with an easy smile. 

Taako tossed a coy grin back. “That’s Sir Little man to you, Sazzy.” 

“Sazzy?” Sazed questioned as pulled the young chef closer since the crowds were thickening. “Stay close. A small elf like you could get lost.” 

Taako trailed close to Sazed. “I thought I’d spice up your name. Like calling me Koko. But you’re not allowed to call me Koko.” He knew from experience that large crowds were a maze of sweaty bodies. 

“Koko, huh? And who calls you that?” Sazed quipped as the two ventured into the thicket of bodies. 

They were perfect place to derail police from a chase or get angry shopkeepers off your trail. Large crowds were great for pickpocketing or running away, but they were also impossibly loud. 

There were people pushing and yelling. Children crying. A million different smells filled his nose. Popcorn, cotton candy, sweat, salt, straw. Sazed smelled like berries. He always smelled like berries. 

Taako presses his ears back against his head. 

There was screeching somewhere and laughter. A digging of bells in the distance and music. Taako could feel his feet sinking away from the ground. His hands felt tingly and his brain felt mushy. Everything was overwhelming. He felt like his mind was being pulled in sixty different directions. 

Taako could see the lights in the area glare in his direction. He could feel his heartbeat and hear the blood rushing to his head. Every thought was punctuated with static. A rush of jumbling static. It’s all he could hear. Static filled Taako’s mind. Terrifying Static. Why was he feeling this way? 

Taako plopped down, his clothes rubbed against straw and dirt but Taako didn’t care. He pulled his red robe over his face until all he could smell was its campfire scent. He hands blindly clawed for the edges of his oversized hat and tugged harshly. He pulled the edges of his hat until they pressed painfully against his ears. 

“Hey. Hey. Koko? Breathe with me, okay? In.” Cinnamon. “Out with me.” Berries. “In. There you go.” Campfires. “Out. You doing better now, Little man?” 

Berries. 

Taako opened his eyes, he didn’t remember closing them, and nodded. “Y-Yeah.”  
Sazed lifted Taako into his arms. “Are you ready to see what I dragged you out here for?” Taako nodded again. 

Sazed lifted Taako a little higher so that he could see over the crowd. Taako squinted as he stared at the entrance sign. Goldcliff carnival. 

“A carnival? I’ve never been to one. I bet the food is shit.” Taako said as he hopped on the to ground. He grabbed Sazed’s hands and dragged the sputtering adult through the crowds. 

“Taako! Where did you get such a mouth?” 

The child’s answer was short and blunt. “Another dimension.” Sazed laughed at his childish banter. 

Throughout the day, Taako and Sazed jumped around the carnival. They tried rigged games and rides. They ate weird food and tried carnival popcorn. 

After Taako tried a bite of their food, he quickly shoved the ‘cooks’ out of the kitchen and made the meals himself. Crowds gathered in confusion at first but tried the elf’s food only to please the child. They were soon enthralled by Taako’s cooking skills. The owner approached the child with a smile and job offer, which Taako quickly turned down. 

Taako plucked a few samples off the tray and looked to the crowd. “Take a taste folks.” He plopped the sample in his mouth before he continued. “This is quality work of Taako! You know, from T.V.” He slid over the counter of the stand and jumped onto the ground. “Sizzle it up! With Taako, is here in GoldCliff Monday night at five.” 

The owner slithered through the crowd of people. “I’ll pay you to cook! Just for the rest of the night. There’s one hundred Gp’s in this bag.” The man begged waving a jiggling bag of gold pieces in his face. 

Sazed stopped. He turned back to the desperate owner. “Make it 150 and the kid’ll cook.” 

The man quickly pulled out another bag with a hopeful smile but Taako interrupted. “Yeah, no can do, bubbleh.” The owners smile faded and Taako turned to Sazed. “We came here to have fun, Sazzy. I cook all the time. I want to do something I’ve never done before.” He said stubbornly. There was no negotiating, but Sazed would try. 

“Look, Little Man, The dude is offering 150 Gold Pieces to cook for him. It’ll be easy peasy.” Sazed said with an easy smile. In truth the adult was becoming frustrated. The man was quick to anger. 

Taako crosses his arms. “No means No. I am my own consenting elf and I don’t wanna cook for a stupid carnival booth.” His voice raised slightly but his face remained stoic and neutral. 

Sazed took a calculated step forward. “Come on, little man. There are carnival’s everywhere. Just do it for the money.” 

Taako took a step closer to Sazed. “I don’t want to.” It always amazed Sazed how demanding this child was. He always demanded respect and demanded attention. Taako demanded to be treated like an adult. It always annoyed Sazed how a child had the presence of someone with a hundred years behind them. 

“We are going to go to a different carnival booth and try some unicorn dick. And we are going to have fun. We aren’t going to cook and I don’t care about the money.” And the child elf walked away from the disappointed owner. Sazed took a deep frustrated inhale before joining his boss in the crowd. 

It was when Taako really started to enjoy himself that Sazed really became annoyed. His blood boiled with what could only be described as pure jealousy, although Sazed’s pride would deny such things. 

Taako’s eyes glittered with a child-like sparkle when his eyes discovered a mongoose plush hanging from a color carnival booth. He slammed a bag of coins on the cheap wooden counter of the booth. “How much for the mongoose?” 

The booth owner glinted greedily at the bag. “Hold on now, kid. There are rules to gettin’ prizes.” The carny was not so keen on giving away his cheap prizes without scraping a buck off innocent children. “The rules are simple. I’ll guess three facts about you and if I guess correctly I get your money, if I guess incorrectly, you can have the mongoose. Our game will be judged by hodgepodge.” 

Taako, of course, could not care less about the game. “Fine.” 

The man gave a toothy smile. “Alright. Fact one: You have lived less than thirty years.”

Taako protested “That isn’t fair-“ 

“Incorrect! Incorrect! Incorrect!” The robotic voice of hodgepodge interrupted him. 

Both Taako and The man turned to the machine, stunned. The shocked silence only last a minute before Taako turned back to the boot keeper. “You’re dumb machine is broken.” 

The carny turned back to the child with a weary face. “It better not be. I payed good money for this thing. Name random facts.”

“Ted Cruz did nine eleven!” Taako shouted. 

Hodgepodge’s robotic correct was drown out by the rather loud exclamation of “Who the fuck is Ted Cruz?” 

Taako shouted Fact after fact before deciding that hodgepodge wasn’t broken and settled with a shrug that he was older than thirty. The owner failed two more times leaving Taako with a new plush. 

The young elf marched up to Sazed with a wide smile, that Sazed wanted nothing more than to wipe in the dirt. But, he refrained. 

“Sooooo, apparently I’m like thirty, I’m gay and my middle name is linda, but look at this adorable mongoose, did you know they can detect poison. I’m gonna name her Lulu.” He yelled sporadically.

Sazed grimaced. Every smile, every laugh, every loud from Taako brought an intense overwhelming feeling of envy and frustration. He wanted nothing more than to erase the elf’s smile. He wanted to bury it six feet under and pray that it stays dead. 

The success of his boss left Sazed feeling empty and powerless. No words could control the child. Age was meaningless to his mind. Words were pointless. Nothing would work to get him to listen. Essentially, Sazed’s inability to control the young chef left violently revolting the child’s success.

If he wanted control, if he wanted power, Sazed would have to enforce it himself. 

To Taako, It was like someone pushed a switch in Sazed’s mind. One moment the child was joyfully introducing LuLu, the next he was being painfully yanked out of the carnival gates. 

Taako yelped as Sazed tugged him carelessly into the caravan. He threw the child onto the shagged carpet.  
“Stay there.” Sazed murmured. “I don’t wanna be sober for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna end this chapter somewhere else but my hands have a mind of their own.

**Author's Note:**

> I also don’t have this story entirely planned out cause I’m stupid.


End file.
